Büro Ole Scheeren has unveiled design for a vertical tropical resort, featuring hanging gardens which will be experienced on every floor. 

Called Sanya Horizons, a tropical resort complex is located in China's beach resort Sanya, one of China's busiest and most desired domestic holiday destinations and frequently compared to Miami or the Bahamas. 

In Sanya, visitors are drawn to the city by the warm, tropical environment, lush natural setting and beautiful beaches stretching for miles.

The 160-metre-tall hotel tower, made of a stack of volumes on top of each other, will frame the horizon of Sanya’s spectacular coastline.

Set to be opened in 2026, the the new resort aims to enhance the experience of the natural world. Büro Ole Scheeren has won an international design competition to design this tropical resort complex. 

Sanya Horizons is intended to embrace, integrate and amplify the surrounding nature to create a unique ecological leisure destination.

The project is developed for CDF Investment & Development Co. on a 83,500-square-metre lush beachfront property and the site consists of a pair of two hotels under IHG brands – The Regent Sanya Bay and Hotel Indigo Sanya Bay.

To create a small footprint, the studio designed a stack of volumes rather than creating a pair of separated towers. Each volume acts like a separate hotel volume so that it could occupy a smaller footprint and liberate large parts of the natural landscape on the ground. 

"This strategic maneuver allows the combined massing to be more structurally and ecologically efficient and creates a memorable and iconic silhouette along Sanya’s shoreline," said Büro Ole Scheeren.

The stacked horizontal volumes are planimetrically curved to open up the views towards the ocean and further enhance the abundant vistas. Every hotel room has its own private terrace and 100 per cent unobstructed sea views. 

"Through the offsets and openings between the volumes, a wide spectrum of natural plantings and gardens emerges throughout the building, almost doubling the amount of green space on the site," the studio added.

Described as an "integral vertical jungle", these hanging gardens, experienced on every floor and from every guest room, create a more holistic and synergetic experience of the resort. A villa typology, called Horizon Villas, have their own private terraces and swimming pools within the horizontal openings. 

On the Sky Deck and Sky Terrace, the studio places various experiential amenities, including restaurants, lounges and verdant landscaping, opening up the massing to increase the overall sensorial diversity of the project.

Besides, the studio designs the Horizons Window at 75 metres above the ground, a six storey-tall opening offers a multifunctional outdoor deck with unobstructed views of the sea to the east and the sunset to the west. 

Once complete, it will be "one of the largest in the world", it also features a giant infinity-edge Horizon Pool that spans 153 meters in width and cantilevers above the ocean, projecting bathing guests towards the surf of the beach in mid-air.

Besides the overall structural efficiency of the combined hotel volumes, the multiple large- scale openings of the building increase the porosity and thereby minimize structural wind loads. Single-loaded hotel room layouts allow for complete natural cross-ventilation and reduce the need for mechanical cooling. 

Sustainability is the key component of design that derives the overall language of the project. The façade is comprised of a deep hexagonal grid of balconies and walkways that provide complete protection from the sun, and as a result, it dramatically further reduces the building’s energy footprint. 

"Through those strategic measures, combined with the integration of abundant greenery throughout the building, Sanya Horizons yields a highly environmentally responsible and sustainable performance in respect of the planet and beautiful nature surrounding the project," added Büro Ole Scheeren.

On the ground level, the tower proposes the gentle, undulating landscape, maximized through the vertical stacking of the hotels, echoes the ocean waves and ripples beyond. 

The undulating landscape will home to various unique species, biotopes, pavilions and experiences, these gardens further complement and blend the natural with the built environment, creating what architect Ole Scheeren describes as "the merging of architecture and nature into a space of synergetic habitat" – a new, natural space of living combined with an experiential diversity and richness not otherwise possible.

Sanya Horizons, elevation

Sanya Horizons, axonometric drawing

Sanya Horizons, layered program

Sanya Horizons, sustainability diagram 

Büro Ole Scheeren was founded by German architect, urbanist Ole Scheeren in 2010. Büro Ole Scheeren has offices in Hong Kong, Beijing, Bangkok, New York, London and Berlin. 

Residential complex The Interlace in Singapore is one of the key projects of Büro Ole Scheeren completed in 2013. 

Büro Ole Scheeren is also designing a new hotel resort in Cebu in the Philippines. The studio will create a new Art And Cultural Destination in Hangzhou. 

All images © Büro Ole Scheeren

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